Rhetorical Analysis

The article I have chosen to analyze is “Behind the ‘Illegal Alien’ label Real Kids with a lot to Contribute.” The author’s rhetorical purpose is to show the audience, mainly Americans and the American government, those who we label as “illegal immigrants” or “illegal aliens” have a lot to contribute. The author gives a lot of points stating different ways these immigrants can contribute to the American society.

The author writes this article expecting the reader to know: America has a lot to offer families and individuals success in their lives. There is such a desire that so many people want a better life for themselves, that it’s crazy how much work they put in to achieve things, us as Americans see as “minimum.”

The author uses a lot of different points to express his feelings, add emotion, and paint a lot of pictures in our minds about this situation. I think the author succeeds at convincing us that the “Illegal Alien” has a lot more to offer to society that we may know of. As Americans we typically stereotype the words “illegal alien” and “illegal immigrants,” and give it a negative consequence. We don’t really realize that most of these “illegal persona,” are doing some of the most extraordinary things. Throughout the article he hints a lot of the times that we “label” these immigrants negatively. He does not only make us feel guilty, but he relieves us, and shows us that we may not think the way our government thinks and acts. The author leans towards a particular culture, that I think kind of hurts his argument, but still it helps him a lot to give us an inside look on the way things happen.

One of my favorite things the author states is at the end of the whole article, once he is done explaining his argument. He basically sums it up to 7 words, and kind of leaves us hanging. To me it is a very emotional article that lists many points to the reader and puts a bullet right through the American government. I think immigration is a global issue that may have a lot of different perspectives around the world, and the way Americans deal with this issue, is very unfair.

This author does not only just speak about immigration though. He uses children to identify his points. He compares a drug dealer to a honor student. As a society we see drug dealers as bad people, who are bad influences, but we look at honor students and we think they are the wisest, smartest people we know.  I really enjoyed that comparison, and hope to be able to do this article its justice.